First private hospital sold. Euroclinic goes to Centrul Medical Unirea

Medical service operator Centrul Medical Unirea (Unirea Medical Centre), controlled by investment fund Advent International, will conduct the first merger on the private medical services market with Euroclinic Hospital & Medical Centers.

The move comes after the takeover by Advent from Dutch Eureko group of 99.9% in the hospital last Thursday. The value of the deal signed that day was not publicly revealed.
"To the private medical services market what happened (the Euroclinic - CMU merger i.e.) is a good thing. On the one hand it consolidates CMU's position on the market, and on the other creates a better alternative to public services. People can compare and I hope the flow of those going abroad to seek treatment can be reverted. As far as competition is concerned, this is not a problem, because there is a huge need (of such services i.e.) and more players will be able to tap into the business and still won't be enough," said Robert Şerban, one of the shareholders of private medical clinics Gral Medical.
The takeover of Euroclinic is the third conducted on the private medical service market this year after Advent bought into CMU and MedLife took over a clinic in Braşov.
At the end of 2009 an investment fund of Societe Generale bought into MedLife; since that moment on acquisitions on this market have jumped over the 50 million-euro mark, making it into one of the hottest industries. Private clinics, whose business is based on subscriptions offered by companies to employees, have been seeing a significant rise even lately when the economy is in recession.